A wife's refusal to join her husband at his place of work is not without reasonable excuse if she is gainfully employed and the husband is not a well-to-do man who can afford to maintain her.

JUDGMENT :- This is an appeal by the husband against the judgment of the second Additional District Judge, Pondicherry, dismissing his petition under Sec. 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 for a decree directing the respondent, his wife, to perform conjugal duties by coming and living with the appellant. At the time of the marriage between the parties, which took place on 29-9-1966 both the appellant Radhakrishnan and his wife Dhanalakshmi were gainfully employed. The appellant was a driver in the State Transport undertaking at Madras, whereas the respondent, who is a trained teacher, was employed as a school mistress in an elementary school conducted by the Madras Corporation. In fact, even for four or five years prior to the marriage, the respondent was in the service of the Corporation as a school mistress. After the marriage, certain trivial misunderstandings appear to have broken out between the parties, whereupon the appellant expressed to the State Transport undertaking his willingness to go to Pondicherry, whereupon he was transferred to Pondicherry. Subsequently, he was transferred to Krishnagiri. It is the complaint of the wife that it is within the husband's power to get a transfer back to the Madras city and live with her. The main complaint of the husband is that in spite of his calling upon his wife to resign her job in the Corporation service and join him at Krishnagiri, she has unreasonably refused to resign her post and give him her company at Krishnagiri. On the other hand, the wife would contend that it is with a view to tease her that the husband got out of Madras on his own volition and that in the circumstances in which she finds herself, it is unsafe for her to resign the job and look up to her husband for the maintenance of herself and her child. Admittedly, a girl has been begotten by her to her husband and she is seven years old and is living with her. It is also the respondent's complaint that her husband used to beat her often whenever she refused to part with her jewels which he used to demand for the purpose of conversion into cash. In these circumstances, can it be stated that she is, without reasonable excuse, withdrawing from the society of her husband? It is not as if the husband is a well-to-do man who can afford to maintain his wife and daughter out of the meagre sum of Rs. 200 which he earns as a driver. While it is open to him to get a transfer from Krishnagiri to Madras, it is not open to the wife to get a transfer from the Madras Corporation service to any elementary school at Krishnaairi. The only method by which she can give her company to her husband is by burning her boats - resiging her job-and abandoning herself to the mercies of her husband. The other method which if the couple are sensible, they can reasonably follow is that each may visit the other in his or her place at week-ends, and come away after a day's stay at the place of his or her avocation.

2. Learned counsel for the appellant contends, on the strength of the ruling in Vuyyuru Pothuraju v. Vuyyuru Radha AIR 1965 A. P. 407, that it is the bounden duty of a Hindu wife to live with her husband wherever he may choose to reside and that it is the right of the husband to require his wife to live with him and that courts cannot deprive him of his right except under special circumstances which absolve the wife from that duty. In the case "Before their Lordships the wife was not gainfully employed, whereas in this case she is. As I observed in Sulochana v. Selva Madhavan, 1974 T. L. N. J. 351-

"Under pristine Hindu law, a Hindu wife's first duty to her husband is to submit herself obediently and to remain under his roof and protection. But then legislative enactments like the Hindu Marriage Act have made considerable inroads upon the unqualified rights that the Hindu husband previously enjoyed over the wife. The Court cannot in every case when the wife withdraws from the society of the husband pass a decree for restitution of co

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